Painting with Watercolors for Beginners Part II

The old cliché is “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”, but I’d like to modify it slightly by saying, “Painting an apple a day teaches you shading, blending, and watercolor basics.” In this post, you’ll learn more about watercolor tips and techniques; as well as how to really “see” a subject in order to paint it!

Note that this is a follow-up post to Painting with Watercolors for Beginners. If you have not yet read the Painting with Watercolors for Beginners post, I would recommend giving it a look before examining this post!

Painting from Life or a Photograph

I almost always paint from a photograph because a photograph is constant. The lighting doesn’t change as the sun goes up or down, and you can take your sweet time. A good, high-quality photo is ideal so you can observe details. I recommend practicing with this photograph of an apple; just follow along with this tutorial in order to learn about some basic techniques and good habits to form.

Change Your Paradigm

The trickiest part of the whole painting process is really seeing the photograph. What I want you to do is try to change your paradigm. Stop seeing the apple as an apple, and try to see it as an object made up of shapes, colors, and shadows/light spots. It’s not an easy thing to do, so don’t feel bad if you’re squinting and scratching your head right now. These visuals, however, should help you. Here’s how you should see the apple from a shape perspective:

As well as from a simplified color perspective:

Here are the shadows and highlights; all unmarked areas are medium tones:

To begin painting, you can either paint directly over a printed-out version of the image using a light box as shown in the herbal watercolor tutorial, or you can free-hand the subject in pencil. I know that you may not have a light box, so in this tutorial, I am going to free-hand using a pencil. Don’t worry about the pencil sketch looking exactly like the photo; “good enough” is just fine. {If you wanted an exact replica of the apple, you’d just frame the photo! This painting will be your interpretation of the apple.}

Paint a Base Layer

I like to paint a base layer when I am using watercolors. This is only one way to do it, but it’s the way that works for me, and that’s why I’m showing you. To make the base layer, use light shades of your simplified colors. In this case, the simplified colors are green and red. You can wait until you’re done with the “body” of the apple to add in the stem; small elements take second priority to big ones.

Layer on Additional Paint

From here on out, it’s just a layering process. As shown in the sphere video in the Painting with Watercolors for Beginners, you’ll want to tackle your medium tones next. I have chosen to use two medium tones: a stronger concentration of red {for the red side}, and a mixture of green and brown {for the green side}.

As you blend the medium tones into the lighter tones, take care to preserve your light spots. Basically: just avoid painting over them.

Once you’ve blended your medium tones, it’s time to add in shadows. I always, always paint shadows darker than they appear in the reference photo. For a long time, I was timid about adding strong shadows; and consequently, I painted pieces that weren’t quite convincing or compelling. I would suggest experimenting with a color other than black for your shadow. You usually think about shadows as being black, right, but the shadows on the apple look more purplish to me. That’s why I’m going to use violet hematite for my shadows.

You’ll want to paint the violet/purple on your illustration wherever your shadows appear in the photo. “Tease” each shadow out by using water and a light touch, again, as shown in the sphere video.

Add the Finishing Touches

At this point, your apple should be looking more like a real apple than a blob comprised of a couple of colors. It may, however, still be lacking some details. To identify those missing details, examine your illustration vs. the photo. You may notice that you’ve missed a shadow here or a dot there. Add them in as you see them! Here’s a tip, too: on larger art pieces, especially, you’ll reach a point in which you know the artwork doesn’t look quite right, but you can’t identify why. If that happens, leave the artwork alone for a few hours or overnight. When you see the artwork again with “fresh eyes”, it will be obvious to you what you need to do. Since this is a small piece, I was able to create it in one session. Here are a series of photos outlining the details I added:

Once you are satisfied with how your illustration looks {and you add in other details like the stem, which takes a minute or two}, you’re finished! I know with certainty that I am done because a few hours after creating this painting, I absentmindedly attempted to pick the “apple” off of the table I had put the illustration on. I was grasping for a 3D object!

Painting Without Using a Reference

Most subjects painted without a reference will turn out delightfully imaginative and appealing. I love painting florals and patterns without a reference {like in the Botanical Watercolor Wreath Tutorial}; that’s the “look” I’m drawn to!

Sometimes it may be impossible to draw something using a reference photo. For example, it would be very difficult to paint “Fritz the Fruit-Foraging Fox” {an adorable illustration by Teagan White} from a reference photo. It’s not every day you see a smiling, walking fox in a sweater and trousers, after all.

Despite not having a reference photo, you can tell that artist White implemented knowledge of shading and contouring. The insides of the fox’s ears, for example, are darker than the rest of his face to signify depth. The little grapes in his basket have shadows and light spots. The scarf has three different shades in order to show you the different folds. In short, White has used her knowledge and experience of drawing things from real life or a reference photo in order to paint using only her imagination. For this reason, I would recommend practicing painting from reference photos before you try creating an illustration like the fox above from imagination alone.

Using Ink and Watercolor Together

Combining ink and watercolor will always give you a striking effect. However, you must use a waterproof ink if you don’t want the ink to run when you apply paint to it! I prefer to use Ziller Soot Black.

Wait several minutes (or several hours, if you can) for the the ink to completely dry. Once the ink has dried, you can go over it with watercolor paint.

Do Your Own Thing

Part of the beauty of doing anything creative is you can ignore what you’ve been told and do your own thing. I’ve said this before, but Picasso was a classically-trained painter who could create extremely realistic pieces at a very young age. Despite his classical skill, he chose to ignore convention, and he — in concert with fellow painter Braque — came up with Cubism. That’s the playful, offbeat style Picasso is famous for.

Through blog posts like these, I am giving you the knowledge that I have of watercoloring; but I want you to feel free to distort or modify that knowledge to come up with your own style! That’s the beauty of creativity … you can take into consideration what you know, but you don’t have to implement it! If you have any more questions about watercoloring (or advice for others), please feel free to comment! Thanks very much for reading; it’s a pleasure to have you here.

Hi Lindsey, I just love, love, love your blog! You seem to be so practical, yet so gifted – a great combination! I was wondering how you ‘knew’ to put yellow (a very basic description, but hopefully you get what I mean!), on the elephant in your drawing above with the tiger? And with the tiger, I would have instinctively painted him all over the orangey/yellow colour, where you have left most of him/her uncoloured. I guess what I’m asking is do you know ‘why’ you do what you do – (and I don’t!), or is it a case of novice to expert? It’s what you learn as you go along?
Thank you so very much for sharing your wonderful knowledge and experience – it’s a joy to learn from you!
Barb
New Zealand

Thank you… This is a very good tutorial on how to divide an object into shapes/blobs of colours etc. I am trying to do watercolour right now, and I have been struggling with drawing shadows. I suppose I should just stick with painting fruits for a bit lol.